This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
|
This is a continuation of Part I.
OK. It is lunchtime now. Time to crank through a bit more of this. I’ve got about an hour. Then if needed, there will be more time later. Things are not all mail-in yet, I can drop my ballot off at the polling station until 03 UTC. (Another 8 hours from when I am writing this.)
Anyway, the next five Governor candidates:
- Christian Joubert (Prefers Democratic Party): Starts his statement by saying “Because I feel Washington State should be leading the Nation in promoting a Spiritual Civilization based on holistic medicine…” And the website? OH MY GOD! MY EYES ARE BURNING! OK. Next.
- Christopher Tudor (States No Party Preference): Hmm, some stuff about being independent of party, some stuff about cleaning up government. Nothing to detailed though. Nothing much concrete enough to make a decision on.
- Javier Lopez (Prefers Republican Party): “As an artist and inventor I have come up with an invention that will solve all of the world’s problems. I have invented an air engine that has the power to operate an automobile while relying on air as its fuel source. Adoption of this technology would mean an end to reliance on fossil fuels, stopping carbon-monoxide emissions, pollution and global warming.” Umm…. OK.
- Mohammad Said (States No Part Preference): Platform Elements… Washington National Guard unilaterally withdraw from Iraq… Amend the constitution so that the state legislatures declare war instead of the US Congress. Oh, and “Finally I would like to sound the alarm, that AIPAC and other Jewish Zionist Lobbies who represent less than 2% of American People are using the United States through their mighty power in the News Media, Financial Institutions, Hollywood and Entertainment Industry, Both Political Parties, Congress and the White House as Proxy to wage war against any country perceived to be threat to Israel, like in Iraq.”. Yum Huh. OK. And the website: “The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later. ” Good job there.
- James White (Prefers Independent Party): Some seemingly random platform items with no real information. He also has a rambling thing talking about defending the Constitution, but without really explaining what he is talking about.
Wow. What a horrible set of choices. All ten of them. For the moment I think I am going to go for Dino Rossi. I however reserve the right to not vote for him in November. I will look at the winning two candidates much more closely than I’ve looked at them today.
My vote:
Dino Rossi
Once again a top two primary. Oh my. There are TEN candidates here. This will take awhile.
The candidates are:
- Dino Rossi (Prefers G.O.P. Party): First of all, just say Republican. What are you trying to pull? Second, G.O.P. stands for Grand Old Party, so he apparently prefers the Grand Old Party Party. I should exclude him just for that. In general, I see a lot of fiscal responsibility stuff, which I like. I like some of his positions on education too. Possible.
- Will Baker (Prefers Reform Party): Number One, His website is “TheTruthRocks.com”. Really? Come on. And it plays music. And the website sucks. Number Two, his entire theme seems to be about going after the current Governor for some possible misfeasance. Even if all those charges are 100% true, it is not enough of a platform. His website mentions some other things, but all crusading type things rather than addressing central issues.
- Christine Gregoire (Prefers Democratic Party): She is the incumbent. Her website has various things about her record, but not a specific issues section that I could find. Also, when I saw her in person earlier this year, I was not impressed and she annoyed me. And while I don’t follow local news closely, I just don’t remember hearing anything that really left me with a positive impression. In her time in office she has moved the state budget from deficit to surplus. That is good. But I think I don’t like her.
- Duff Badgley (Prefers Green Party): Website is for the “Climate Change Action Group” not for him personally. Fail. His platform includes outlawing single occupancy vehicles among other radical authoritarian things to “save the environment”. Double Fail.
- John Aiken (Prefers Republican Party): His main issue seems to be Energy Self Reliance, although he comments on some other things too. All of his comments are way too long to read though. Needs to learn the art of the quick summary at the top, then details for those who want them. But you need a broader view to be governor anyway, not just look at a few issues.
Crap, I’m out of time. I need to hop in the car and get to work. And I’m only half way through the Governor candidates. I’ll post this as a “Part I” and continue at lunch.
OK, here I find myself on election day and almost out of time. I of course intended to space out all these ballot items and have plenty of time left. But in fact, I have about 45 minutes right now before I need to get on the road for work, and then maybe I have some time at lunch. But basically, I am going to crunch through as many of these as I can, and will probably spend less time researching, and less time talking about my choices. Oh well.
In any case, the next item on the agenda is the primary for my Representative for Congress. Now, this is a good time to mention that as of this election, Washington State has a “Top Two Primary” where all candidates (regardless of party) appear on the same ballot, then the top two end up on the ballot in November. This was very controversial, but I like it.
For this spot there are five candidates:
- Boleshaw Orlini (States No Party Preference): He says in his little summary paragraph that he was inspired by Ron Paul, but provides no details, and has no website. Fail.
- Richard Todd (States No Party Preference): Seems to basically be running promoting the need to be independent of parties. I like that idea, but the website is painful and the little of it I read did not impress me.
- James Vaughn (Prefers Democratic Party): I was actually tempted by this guy. I really want to vote for someone other than the two front runners here. And some of the policy statements this guy makes on his site I completely agreed on. But then there were others I just did not like one tiny bit. In the end, I won’t make that jump.
- Dave Reichert (Prefers Republican Party): This is the incumbent. It was interesting noting what major issues were completely absent from his website (Iraq). In general, I would not be automatically opposed to voting for a Republican. And if Obama ends up winning in November, I actually would prefer a Republican congress for balance. However, I can not in good conscience vote for any incumbent congress person who has not been a extremely vocal critic of this administrations overreaches. And I have heard no such thing about Reichert.
- Keith Arnold (Prefers Democratic Party): His main emphasis seems to be on the need to eliminate the US Supreme Court. Nuff Said.
- Darcy Burner (Prefers Democratic Party): I saw her in person a couple of times when I was doing the local Obama Delegate thing. She seemed nice, but I was really turned off by how partisan she was at those events. Meaning how much she talked about how bad the Republicans were and how we needed Democrats in office. Now, she did talk about issues too. But the emphasis on partisanship turned me off a lot. Having said that, she did actually seem to be somewhat reasonable on many of the issues. And although I am not super excited by her, she seems like the best of this bunch.
So, my vote:
Darcy Burner
The good news for McCain continues. Today it is in the form of Obama’s lead in Minnesota dropping below 10%, moving the state from “Strong Obama” to “Weak Obama”. There is still quite a way for it to go before it becomes a swing state though. So the overall summary stays the same:
McCain Best Case – McCain 298, Obama 240
Obama Best Case – Obama 384, McCain 154
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 293, McCain 245
Given how close together the two conventions are, and how state polling takes awhile to show any effects, I’m not sure if any “bounce” from the Democratic convention will even be visible. We’ll see I guess. In reality, I think we’ll have to wait until mid-September to try to get a picture of what things really look like after both candidates have picked their Veeps and had their conventions.
But right about now I could see Obama really wanting a big convention bounce. His really strong position in mid-July has just been steadily eroding ever since then. He’s still ahead at the moment, but McCain definitely has the momentum at the moment.
Note to future candidates: Wait until mid-November for the vacation. Take a day here or there to recharge perhaps. But a full week? Bad idea.
The odds of tropical storm force winds at my old house in Palm Bay, FL went above 50% in this morning’s update from the NHC:
Of course, I don’t live there any more, and where I am I think the odds of tropical storm force winds are pretty low I would think. :-)
My Curmudgeon’s Corner cohost is of course also looking like he’ll get some weather out of this in Miami as well. I trust nothing too bad though. Looks like only a 60% chance or so of tropical storm force winds and pretty much no chance of hurricane force winds. So all should be fine.
Sam and Ivan talk about:
- Sam’s Portuguese
- All Georgia All the Time
- A Little on Russia
- McCain and Obama on Georgia
- The Pseudodebate
- Accidents and Electronics
- Final Call on the Dem Veep
- Separation of Public and Private
- Washington State Top Two Primary
- Fay Heads for Ivan
 1-Click Subscribe in iTunes
 View in iTunes
 Podcast XML Feed
Hey, I just noticed that sometime on Friday my all-time income from the ads on this site just went over the $20 mark! It took one week short of a year. Woo!!!
Of course, I don’t actually get paid until it reaches $100.
But still.
Woo!
:-)
![]() ![]() A few weeks ago it was time for another DVD that we own but have never watched. Amy chose. It would be disk two of season one of Roswell. Amy had a friend over that night. We all watched the first episode together. But then partway through the second episode Amy and her friend and Brandy started making noise and throwing candy around, and after the second or third time it happened I couldn’t deal any more and left them to watch the rest on their own. (When I watch DVDs I need to do so in complete silence, concentrating on the screen, and any distractions throw me completely out of the experience and make me quite unhappy.)
Anyway, slowly over the last few weeks I watched the rest of the episodes on this disk. I finished sometime last week. So time to post it.
Not too much to say though. The episodes were:
“Missing”: A lost journal with all sorts of secrets. I don’t remember much else. It wasn’t hugely memorable, but it was an OK episode.
“285 South”: This is the one that I left in the middle of. I liked it better. It was a little funny, and they went and found the dome thing.
“River Dog”: They go and find a cave with stuff in it that may have information about their past.
“Blood Brother”: Max gets injured and Alex helps cover up, and his relationship with Liz suffers. I actually liked this one the best of the four I think.
All in all four decent episodes. Nothing super exciting though.
It is over 95 degrees in my office. The little portable AC unit stopped working last week some time. And it is hot again in Seattle. Not 95 degrees hot, it is only 80 outside right now, but the office heats up like an oven in the afternoon when the sun hits that side of the house, and it lasts for many many hours. It probably won’t be a temperature where I could feel functional in there until well after midnight.
I have retreated to the bedroom, where is is only 87. Of course, that is still too hot for me.
It might be a little cooler still downstairs, but for the moment I’m staying here.
But I hate the hot and sticky. I pretty much can’t function. So all the normal things I’d do in my office in the evenings are not happening. Instead I am lying here watching things on the Tivo. Completely non-productive. But doesn’t require movement.
The fact that air conditioning is rare in this part of the country is so annoying.
It is because it is only like this a few days a year, so for the most part it isn’t worth it.
But I can’t stand these few days.
And the thought of a new one of those portable AC units that actually works is very appealing right now. Of course, by the time I decide that maybe, just maybe, it is actually worth going out and getting one, the heat will be gone.
|
|
